Why yes, I did...

...just put the kids to bed a half hour early, because it seemed like a better option than murder completely losing my temper in a spectacular and regrettable manner.  It's possible that some degree of physical and emotional exhaustion was playing into the whole lovely scene, because the one who swears she's wide awake until she is actually laying down in bed didn't object in the least to that part happening so early, and the one who stalls and stalls still did so, but wound up settled down at the time the stalling usually begins.  I have a feeling this is a trick that will only work if we hardly ever use it, but I think tonight was a good benchmark of when we need to pull it out.